Starfish View of the Sea

Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month

This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.

Burbank Middle School offers a Dual Language Program to many of the immigrants that come to Houston from Mexico and Central America. My classes have only bilingual students who speak Spanish as their first language. I teach a 6th grade bilingual Science class that includes a general coverage of science. Hands on activities and face to face encounters with real life materials really make more sense to our students where sometimes there is a language barrier but getting their hands onto materials helps the learning come through to them. Though we are close to the Gulf of Mexico, our students know little about the life in the water except for the fun of splashing, getting cool, and building castles in the sand. Humans would not exist without the seas and oceans of the world. My students need to know more about the creatures that live under the water's surface. The starfish offers an example of a species to my students that is not so familiar. My 120 students will study the starfish to learn of its anatomy and compare it to the other animals that they know. Starfish may well be the most unusual well-known creature. They have no front or back and they can move in any direction without turning. Their mouth is on the bottom side called the oral surface. The top side is called the aboral surface. Starfish walk using their tube feet to move themselves along a surface. Their tube feet have suckers on the ends, which they use to attach themselves to rocks and to trap prey items. Rather than using muscles to move their hundreds of tube feet, starfish use a complex hydraulic system to move around or cling to rocks. The intake valve for this system, Madreporite, is generally located on the top of the Starfish, just off center. Starfish can regrow their arms if they are damaged or eaten by predators. In fact, in some cases an entire sea star can be regenerated from just a single arm! Since they are such an unusual creatures, I would like my students to study this animal and then compare it to other animals that they know better. We have recently 'signed on' with a marine science vessel that is going out to the Pacific Ocean to study marine life. ORV Alguita’s Ship to Shore Education Program offers a connection between the ship's studies and what we do in the classroom. I want to connect the study of the starfish with the interaction with the ORV Alguita’s Ship to Shore Education Program. Once students have completed their studies of the starfish, they will review pictures of other types of starfish that will be seen by the Alguita. They will then write a story about their findings of the starfish and compare this animal to other animal kingdoms. Having the real starfish in the classroom will make learning more meaningful to our students and advance their interest in learning more about the ocean and what lies beneath. Thank you.